Chapter 226: And What If Lorenzo Doesn’t Know?

"Which one?" Enzo asked.

"That," Dimitri said, "is the question we need answered."

"I’m going to Rome next week," Enzo said. "I’m going to talk to Isabella. I’m going to find out exactly what’s happening"

The elevator descended.

"Don’t," Dimitri said.

"Don’t what?"

"Don’t go," Dimitri said quietly. "Because if Lorenzo already knows about Dante and is choosing to keep quiet, your interference is going to complicate a strategic position we don’t fully understand."

"And if Lorenzo doesn’t know?" Enzo asked.

"Then we find out why his intelligence network missed something that obvious," Dimitri said. "But we do it quietly. We do it strategically. And we don’t go stumbling into Rome asking questions that might alert people we don’t want alerted."

The elevator reached the ground floor.

The doors opened.

"I’m going anyway," Enzo said. "I’m going to talk to Isabella and figure out what’s actually happening."

"Fine," Dimitri said. "Go to Rome. Talk to Isabella. But you call me with what you find before you do anything else."

"Understood," Enzo said.

"And Enzo?" Dimitri added. "Be careful. Since Dante is still active in her apartment, That means that he is still monitoring her communications. He might know the moment someone starts asking questions about him."

"I’ll be careful," Enzo said.

The call ended.

Dimitri walked through the parking garage toward his car, his mind already processing the implications of what Enzo had told him.

Dante was still visiting Isabella. Still operating from her apartment. Still conducting intelligence gathering operations.

Which meant either Lorenzo didn’t know it was Dante specifically, or Lorenzo knew and was allowing it for reasons Dimitri didn’t understand.

And if Lorenzo was allowing Dante access to his daughter for some kind of strategic purpose, that changed the entire game board.

***

The drive home took eleven minutes.

Eleven minutes during which Dimitri’s mind was running through scenarios and implications and strategic contingencies.

If Lorenzo was working with Dante, then the Russo family was deeper into The Covenant’s web than anyone realized.

If Lorenzo was allowing Dante to use Isabella as an intelligence asset, then the family dynamics were more complex than they appeared.

And if Lorenzo didn’t know it was Dante...

Well, that opened its own set of problems.

But Dimitri had learned long ago not to underestimate Lorenzo Russo. The man had built a mafia empire through careful intelligence gathering and strategic patience.

He knew things. Important things.

And the fact that he apparently knew about Isabella’s recent activities but was choosing not to intervene suggested that he had reasons for that choice.

Reasons that Dimitri didn’t understand yet.

Reasons that might become very important in the coming weeks.

Dimitri pulled into the penthouse garage and parked in his designated space.

Then he took the elevator up to the penthouse, already pulling his phone away.

He was going to be a man coming home to the woman he loved. A man who was going to spend the next few hours pretending that his world wasn’t about to explode.

A man who was going to hold Eve and memorize the way she felt against him, because within seventy-two hours, he might be dead.

***

POV: EVE

Eve knew something had changed the moment he walked through the penthouse door.

It wasn’t anything he did or said. It was what she didn’t see in his expression. The careful control that had been there for the past seventy-two hours, the mask of a man preparing for war....had shifted into something different. Something that looked almost like peace.

Or maybe acceptance.

She was curled on the sofa in the living room, pretending to read a book she hadn’t been absorbing a word of. The moment she heard the elevator doors open, the book went down. By the time Dimitri appeared in the doorway, she was already standing.

He looked exhausted.

Beneath the tailored suit and the carefully groomed hair and the storm-gray eyes, he looked like a man who’d been running on adrenaline and coffee for three days straight. The kind of exhaustion that went beyond physical tiredness, the kind that came from making decisions that would change people’s lives.

But when he saw her, something shifted in his face.

The exhaustion didn’t disappear. But it softened. Became less like armor and more like simple humanity.

"Hi," Eve said, and her voice sounded small in the penthouse.

"Hi," Dimitri replied.

He crossed the distance between them in four strides and pulled her into his arms. Eve went willingly, burying her face against his chest, breathing him in. She could smell cologne and the faint scent of his skin and something else....the metallic smell of the office, the recycled air from buildings and cars.

He’d been out in the world. Making things happen. Setting things in motion.

And now he was here. With her. Holding her like she was something precious.

"Everything’s ready?" Eve asked, though she already knew the answer.

"Everything’s ready," Dimitri confirmed.

She pulled back enough to look at his face. There was no point asking him for details, he wouldn’t tell her. The operational security was too important. But she could read it in the set of his jaw, in the way his hands kept her close, in the careful control of his breathing.

This was real now.

The infiltration wasn’t theoretical anymore. It wasn’t something happening in some distant future. It was happening. Soon. Within days.

"When?" Eve asked.

"Friday. Interview at eight PM. If it goes well, I’ll receive the deployment instructions by Saturday morning."

Friday. Three days.

Eve had three days with him before he walked into that facility. Three days before everything changed.

"Okay," she whispered.

Dimitri’s hand came up and cupped her face. His thumb traced her cheekbone with surprising gentleness from a man who’d spent the last seventy-two hours planning a mission that would likely kill him.

"I need to talk to Nonna," he said. "And then I’m going to tell you the full operational plan. Everything you need to know in case something goes wrong."

"Dimitri...."

"No." His voice was gentle but firm. "You need to know. You need to understand exactly what’s happening and what happens next if I don’t come back."

Eve’s throat tightened. "You’re coming back."

"I’m coming back," he agreed. But there was a qualifier in his voice. A but that he wasn’t saying aloud. But in case I don’t. But if the operation goes wrong. But if The Covenant discovers me.

"Come on," Dimitri said, taking her hand. "Let’s talk to Nonna."